The Diablo Horror (The River Book 7) Read Online Free Page B

you-know-who
realizes I need help on this, or I expect you’d be in the hospital right along
with her.”
    “Christ,” Roy said. “Really?”
    “That’s been his M.O. from the beginning. Threaten you two
until I agree.”
    “What a pig’s ear,” Roy said, turning again to look out the
window. Thomas’ words to him from the night before returned to his mind: He’ll
keep coming back. It’ll never be over.
    “So Eliza’s in the hospital because of this deal you have,
that you won’t tell me about?” Jason asked.
    “Basically, yes,” Steven answered. “We need to locate this Agimat
as quickly as we can and get back to Seattle with it. By tomorrow, if
possible.”
    “How are we going to do that?” Jason asked.
    “I don’t know,” Steven said. He turned to look at Roy. Roy
was back to staring out the window, watching the evergreens go by.
     
    ◊
     
    Steven pulled his car off the main road where a large wooden
brown sign read “Diablo” with an arrow pointing to the left. The sign didn’t
look like a normal highway or forest service sign.
    He slowly progressed down Diablo Street, Gorge Lake on their
right, and a steep cliff lined with evergreens on their left. The small two-lane
road twisted and turned along the edge of the lake. After a mile it emerged
into a clearing that looked like a small collection of houses placed simply
along two small roads. Steven chose one of the roads and slowly drove along it,
observing the houses. They were all the same; same size, shape, design. Little
houses made of ticky-tacky, he thought. They were painted different colors,
but the colors were in a limited palette – nothing interesting or eye-catching.
Each home sat back from a one-lane asphalt road, with a cement driveway
connecting the house to the street. Lawns filled the space between the house
and the road. There were no fences, and the lawn of one house ran into the lawn
of the next. After passing nine or ten houses on both sides of the street, he
turned and drove down the other lane running through the clearing. It was
similarly lined with the same houses. The only real difference between any of
the houses was which children’s toys were lying in front of or behind each
house.
    One house seemed different than the others, standing out for
odd reasons. Whereas all the other houses had closed windows, this house’s
windows were open, and drapes were blowing out of it. There were clothes on the
ground near the front door, strewn across the lawn toward the driveway. “That
one looks promising,” Roy said. Steven stopped the car in front of the house.
It had the feel of being empty, but honestly, so did all the other houses. There
were no people to be seen anywhere, as though the rapture had hit or an
evacuation had been called.
    “Do you want to drop into the River and check it out?” Steven
asked Roy.
    “Not if there’s people living in there!” Roy said.
    “It looks vacant,” Steven said, cocking his head. “I think
the front door is actually open a bit.”
    “People obviously live there,” Roy said. “Look at all the
stuff outside.”
    “Looks to me like they left in a hurry,” Jason said.
    Steven observed the number seventeen on the side of the house
in small reflective decals. He looked over to the house across the street, and
saw eighteen.
    “Come on,” Roy said. “Let’s see if there’s anything else
here.”
    Steven continued on. The similarity of the houses and the
lack of any living people, any movement inside any of the houses, was
disconcerting. There were vehicles parked in front of some of them, and an
occasional barbeque or croquet set stored in the driveway, but no people
anywhere.
    “This place is creepy,” Jason said. “It feels like something
out of a Stephen King novel. Every house exactly the same, and no one around. Kinda
fucked up.”
    When Steven reached the end of the road, he was facing a steep
rise of rock cliffs and was forced to turn around.
    “The whole complex